Sword Heart
by Ghingahn
Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.
1. Prologue

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

Disclaimer: Ghingahn does not own MLP, RuroKen, or any real historical figures or places that might show up in this story.

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It was with a heavy heart that Hiko Seijuro XIII wiped the blood off his sword and sheathed it. All the bandits lay unmoving on the ground, but so did their victims. Not even the horses had survived the attack.

Well, he amended, except one of them. But that horse was smaller than the average six-year old child, and to be honest, he didn't have the slightest idea why anybody would bother raising such a runty specimen, even if it did give off the impression of a kitten. Unless they were collectors or something, which this group clearly had not been.

Shaking the thought off, he left. He had been on his way to the local town for more sake, and there was no reason not to finish the trip.

He decided to pass by the site of the slaughter on his way back the next evening. He did feel a little bit guilty about getting there too late to save anyone, and he could at least give them a proper burial. And maybe he could throw the bandits into a mass grave too, and burn the wagon. Just leaving the bodies lying in the middle of the road didn't feel right. It was like littering.

When he reached it, he stopped short.

Somebody had gotten there before him.

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	2. Chapter 1

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

-0-

"Uh, Boss?"

Kaoru managed to turn her head enough to look over at the goon who had spoken, so that she saw the absolutely tiny red horse next to him.

She recognized that horse. It had saved Kaoru from the fake Battousai just two days ago, knocking her out of the way of the giant of a man's sword, and then it had left on its own before she could take it to the police station to see if they could find its owner. It wasn't harnessed, but it did have a faded pink blanket on its back and a silk scarf around its neck and a weird cross-shaped brand on its left cheek and its long mane was pulled into a low ponytail, and she utterly refused to believe that anything that fuzzy and with such adorable big purple eyes could be wild. It put her rather in mind of a lost kitty.

"What?" said Gohei irritably, and then narrowed his eyes when he saw the ridiculously cute critter, which was engaging in a staring contest with the thug.

"This thing just came in here, Boss. Should we do something about it?"

"It's just some random... animal," said Kihei. "Of some sort. Ignore it."

He and Gohei both turned their attention back to Kaoru, but Kaoru found that couldn't look away from the horse. The thug was still eyeing it suspiciously, but he stood his place when it took a step forward, and...

She made a mental note to keep out of the way of the horse's feet from then on as an agonized scream echoed through the dojo. Gohei jerked and loosened his grip on the front of her gi, and she dropped to the ground, letting out a cry of pain when the impact with the wooden floorboards jarred her injured shoulder.

From her new position on the ground, she couldn't see anything of what was going on. But she could see the flying bodies and confused yells, and soon enough of the thugs blocking her line of vision were lying painfully all over the dojo that she could see what was going on.

It was, actually, the horse, which Kaoru now discovered looked considerably less huggable when there was the hilt of a katana clenched between its teeth. The katana's blade was on the wrong side, which was probably the only reason why nobody was dead. It cleared out the last four goons with a single swing of the sword.

Gohei's mouth had fallen open at some point, and Kihei looked little better off.

"I- Whu- Buh-" said Gohei.

The horse lay the katana gently on the floor, raised its head, and said, "Hitokiri Battousai's style is not the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. He practices the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, an old style that began in the Sengoku Era, and which is designed for taking on many enemies at once. Without a sakabatou, it's a style that slaughters with deadly swiftness." And, slightly amused, "He's also not six feet tall."

If a dragon burst through the door right then and loudly declared its craving for beef pot, Kaoru decided that her first and only reaction would be to give it directions to the Akabeko. And maybe ask if it needed a place to stay the night. And maybe also ask if it was actually Katsura Kogoro. To which it would reply with a thank you, a yes, and a no actually I'm Kondo Isami.

Kihei was the first to react. He let out a very squeaky squeak and dropped in a dead faint.

Gohei just kept standing there, slack-jawed and making weird noises. She thought maybe he was broken.

The horse—Battousai, whatever—stood there for a moment longer, then it—he (she?)_—_picked up the sakabatou and slid it into what was probably the sheath hidden beneath the blanket. Then he started plodding towards the door.

Somebody with a rather high voice called out, "Wait!"

The Battousai stopped and turned to face her. For some reason. She wasn't the one talking, was she?

"Where are you going?"

Huh. It _was _her. That was weird. She was pretty sure her voice wasn't actually supposed to sound like that.

The Battousai blinked. "This one is leaving, that he is."

"No you are _not_," she growled, and the Battousai's eyes widened and he (she _thought _he was a he, but his voice wasn't any more masculine than the rest of him) took a few skittery steps away from her. "You _stay here _until I get back from the police station and then- and then- I... I don't know. Something." She buried her face in her good hand for a moment, and then she looked up again, glaring. "But you _stay_!"

The Battousai let out the sound that Kaoru imagined a kitten would make if someone trampled on it, followed by a "Hai!", and quickly sat down. Kaoru managed to get up with some effort and went over to the door, not bothering to go around any bodies in her way, and made her way towards the station.

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	3. Chapter 2

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

AN: the Dah made an awesome picture of pony!Kenshin, which she has here: rahmakapala . tumblr image / 59791379122 . Seriously, it's awesome, so go check it out, and go look at her deviantart gallery while you're at it. You know you want to.

In other news: Did you know the word "ugly" is used in this chapter eighteen times?

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It wasn't until some ugly hag's runty pet horse took pity on him that Myoujin Yahiko realized just how low he had fallen.

He remembered very little of his parents, but he knew that they both had been honorable people. His father had been killed in the Boshin War fighting for the Shogunate seven months before Yahiko's birth, but he had given his life for his beliefs and in service to his country's ruler. After his father's death, his mother, with no income, had sold herself to a brothel in order to make enough money to care for Yahiko, doing her best to provide for him when her illness set in. That she had died and left her son deeply in debt to the yakuza was no fault of her own, and if anyone was to be blamed, it was Yahiko for not taking better care of her when he'd realized she was sick.

Both of them had died doing what they believed in. And their son? What was _he _doing?

Why, working as a common pickpocket for a gang of lowlife criminals, of course.

Watching Gasuke unsheathe his sword, he probably should feel scared or defiant at his impending doom or something, but all he could feel was anger at himself for being so _weak_. Also, less importantly, he was keeping a careful eye on that sword and planning his escape route, so when Gasuke swung the blade down he launched himself out of the way faster than he'd ever moved before, rolled, and sprang to his feet, and in an instant he was bolting for the door.

He didn't get far. One of the other yakuza grabbed him by the back of his green haori and hauled him back.

Before anything else could happen, though, someone in the hallway kicked down the sliding door.

It was the ugly girl from before, wearing white kendo training clothes and holding a wooden sword in front of her. Her face was grim as she took in the room and startled yakuza, making her look even uglier than usual. Her kitty horse trotted in after her. There was a defective sword in its mouth for some reason.

The corridor they'd come from was strewn with weapons and unconscious men.

Yahiko stopped struggling and said breathlessly, "Ugly?"

Her eyebrow twitched, but she didn't take the bait. "Oi, you!" she shouted at Tanishi, who sat frozen with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "We're here for Myojin Yahiko!"

Gasuke leered at her. "What, a little girl with a wooden sword thinks she can just come in here and demand something from _us_? I am Hitokiri Gasuke, and I'll show you what happens when someone messes with the yakuza!"

With a loud cry, he charged, sword held high. Ugly started to move, but before she could do anything, there was a red blur and the next moment, the horse was standing in front of Ugly, its sakabatou vanished back into the sheath beneath the horse's blanket, and Gasuke and two other yakuza unlucky enough to have been standing behind him were heaped in an unmoving pile against the wall directly to Tanishi's right. The wooden boards behind them had caved inwards a little.

The horse blinked at them, eyes wide. Yahiko could practically hear its no doubt annoyingly squeaky voice going "Who, me?"

Ugly's eyes were wide and her mouth was open slightly, but then she closed it and leveled a glare at everyone in the room. She snapped, "And the same thing's going to happen to all of you if you don't give us Yahiko-kun!"

The guy who'd been holding him's grip had loosened, and it was easy to get away from him and take a step forwards. "I don't need your help, Ugly!" he yelled. "I could've... I can fight them! I can fight them on my own! I'm not _weak_!"

Ugly rounded on him, bokken held threateningly in front of her. Yahiko caught himself before he could take a step back. "Who're you calling ugly, you rude boy? Just be grateful we came to save you at all!"

"I never asked for your help!"

"Yeah? Well, you didn't need to!"

"_Kill them_!" Tanishi shrieked, and both Yahiko and Ugly looked up to see every yakuza in the room coming at them holding all manner of sharp pointy things.

Ugly sprang into action, charging straight at the mob with a yell. But even Yahiko could tell that her sword style wasn't meant for fighting against that many opponents at once, and after cracking her bokken over the first one's shoulder, she was forced to back into the hallway, where he lost sight of her.

Three of them broke off from the main group and advanced on him. First order of business was to get himself a weapon, so he ran past the one on the left, narrowly avoided getting his head lopped off, and whirled around to face them again, stolen wakizashi gripped tightly in his hands.

He was Myojin Yahiko, descended from Tokyo samurai, and samurai didn't run. They didn't retreat. They didn't hide behind ugly old bokken-wielding hags with crazy-strong cat-horses. They stood their ground and fought with their own strength, and if they died, they died honorably in the line of duty.

Myojin Yahiko was the son of a samurai, and he was weak. But he didn't have to be. He stood his ground, heavy blade held firmly in his hands. The three yakuza exchanged glances, and then the wakizashi's original owner stepped forward.

He disarmed Yahiko in about two seconds and wasted no time in lunging for his throat.

The blade never reached him. Yahiko blinked, and when his eyes opened again it was to see the yakuza's katana clatter to the ground and the man's left hand wrap tightly around his other wrist. The fingers of his sword hand were all bent at odd angles, and already were starting to swell and turn purple. The man whimpered, tears forcing their way out of his eyes. Of the other two, one was doubled over on the ground and the other's leg was clearly broken.

The room was kind of blurry and wobbling, and there was something caught in Yahiko's throat. Weird.

Ugly and Kitty finished off the last of the yakuza, and Ugly, who was bleeding, dirtied, and exhausted (and ugly), advanced on Tanishi, who scooted away from her until his back hit the wall.

"Fine, take the boy! Take him and go!"

Ugly narrowed her eyes. "You had better not come after him again," she warned, and then turned to Yahiko, ignoring Tanishi's frantic head-bobbing. "Yahiko-kun, can you walk?"

"I can walk _fine_, Ugly," he growled, and stalked past her out the door, fuming.

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	4. Chapter 3

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

-0-

"So, you two want me to challenge some dojo's assistant master?" said Zanza around a mouthful of rice. He washed it down with a gulp of sake and started on the whole smoked fish.

"No, destroy," the shorter one corrected, "completely. Not challenge."

Zanza's gaze briefly flicked up to the man who had identified himself as Hiruma Kihei, then dropped back to his bowl. "Oi, don't take me for some assassin now. I do fair fights. It's a regular challenge or nothing."

"...Fine."

"So, what's his name and dojo?"

"Kamiya Kaoru, of-"

"Wait a minute, you're hiring me to fight a _woman_?" He waved his chopsticks in a vaguely threatening way. "No, no way! I don't care if she knows kenjutsu or not, I'm not fighting her. If you don't have anything else, then get out."

"Wait!" said the big one hastily, raising both hands in front of himself. "Do you know how we were arrested three weeks ago?"

Zanza snorted. "You have to be kidding. Who _doesn't _know? You pretended you were Hitokiri Battousai and killed ten people, six of them cops, before you attacked the dojo of the sword style you were claiming to practice and the assistant master there handed you your ass. Can't say you didn't deserve it."

"I'm stronger than Kamiya!"

"You sure have a neat way of showing it," said Zanza.

"What Gohei says is true," said Kihei. "He is stronger. Someone- No, some_thing _else saved her. She just took the credit afterwards."

"Really."

"It was a youkai," Zanza's eyebrows soared upwards, "that looks like a cross between a horse and a kitten. It- He claimed to be the real Battousai."

There was absolute silence in the room for ten long seconds.

And then rice sprayed from the fighter's mouth as he laughed them out of his house.

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	5. Chapter 4

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

-0-

Zanza knocked loudly on the doors a few times, and added in a shout of "Is anyone home?" for good measure.

The sun was high in the sky, not that it could be seen through the thick cloud cover that promised rain, and of course it was just a coincidence that he was standing at the dojo entrance just before a thunderstorm right around lunchtime, when it would be downright rude for a host to reject any guest regardless of how much the latter looked like a thug.

To be fair, he hadn't exactly planned the storm—he only wished he could control the weather—but the time? Yeah, that was on purpose.

It didn't take long for there to come the sound of hurried footsteps, and then a lock clicked open and the doors swung inwards. Zanza found himself looking at a young woman dressed in kendo practice clothing and with a bokken slung across her back, and was rather impressed. For one woman, and not even a true master of her style, to run such a popular dojo completely on her own took a lot of work, but she didn't look exhausted at all. She did look a bit irritated, though, and more than just slightly wary, but that was because of him.

"Yes?" she asked. "Who are you?"

He smirked. "I'm Sagara Sanosuke—street name's Zanza. You're Kamiya Kaoru, right?"

"Hai," she said. Her hand crept slowly up towards her bokken. "What do you want?"

Zanza held up his hands. "Woah there, no need for that, jou-chan! I just came here because I've got some information that I figured you'd be interested in. Let me in?"

"If you've got anything to say, you can say it here," she said firmly.

"Yeah, I would, except it's _really important_ information, and _wow _that looks like a big storm coming in I don't think I'd be able to get back to my house on the other side of the city before it hits and would you look at this I don't have an umbrella!" His stomach chose that moment to growl. "Also, last meal I had was breakfast five hours ago, and I ran out of food at my house and forgot to bring money when I left."

"Wh- _What_?" she spluttered. "You're coming here to beg for food? Can't you do that somewhere else?"

"Not begging," said Zanza, "_freeloading_. Begging is where you actually the ask the person, freeloading's when you don't. Two completely different things, see? And I'm really not kidding about that info. Sooooo..." He stepped over the threshold and grinned at her. "When's lunch?"

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	6. Chapter 5

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

Ashar: Thank you for telling me your opinion! I considered Hiko and the Ishin Shishi when this plot bunny first ambushed me, and I do have valid reasons for both of them. I think my explanations make some sense, at any rate. I don't know if I'll be able to implement them into the story proper anytime soon, though, although I'm certainly trying. As for your last point, may I ask if you've ever watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic before? Despite its name and animation style, it's actually considerably better than most people who haven't seen it give it credit for. I didn't like it either until I was convinced to give it a try and made it past the third episode.

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Zanza stirred the food suspiciously, peering at it closely. It smelled good, and it didn't look bad either, but... "Oi, jou-chan, why isn't there any meat in here? Or fish?"

The tanned brat cast a narrow-eyed stare at him that was actually creepy. "You're the one freeloading off us, shut up and eat."

"You're a freeloader too," the jou-chan said.

"Tch, I never _asked _you to help me," the brat muttered.

The jou-chan rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Zanza. "So what was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Oh, that. You know the name Hiruma?"

The brat looked up and asked, "Who?"

"The Hiruma brothers sent you?" Her tone was very flat as she said this, and her expression was blank.

"They tried, but don't worry, I turned them down," said Zanza unhurriedly. The food was decent, especially the tofu—not restaurant quality, but better than anything he could make. Weird that it didn't have any meat or fish in it, though. "I only take fights that I enjoy, and if there's anything I enjoy the least, it's picking fights with girls. But just because _I_ don't do that sort of thing doesn't mean _other _people don't. Those two've got a lotta spending money, and they know how the underworld works, so you'd better expect an assassin to come knocking at your door some time soon."

"Who're the Hiruma brothers?"

"The ones behind the fake Battousai incident," Zanza answered.

"The what?"

Zanza stared at him. "Kid-"

"I'm not a kid!"

"-how can you _not _know about it? I only moved here just after it ended, and even _I _know about it."

"Just tell me already!"

The jou-chan answered. "The Hiruma brothers wanted the land the Kamiya Kasshin dojo is on, so the older brother, Kihei, got me to take him in and tried to convince me to sell it, but when that didn't work, the younger brother, Gohei, impersonated Hitokiri Battousai and went around killing people in the name of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. When I figured out it was Gohei behind the killings, they came here in person and tried to force me to sell them the land. I- It didn't work."

"Oh," said the brat slowly. Then: "Who's this Hitokiri Battousai guy?"

Zanza gaped at him, as across from him the jou-chan choked and started coughing. "Seriously, kid?" said Zanza.

"I'm not a kid!"

"_Seriously_?"

"Shut up!"

Zanza looked at the jou-chan. "Did you find him under a rock or something?"

"Hey!"

"Fastest explanation is that he was the most terrifying guy in the entire Bakumatsu. No one's ever seen him, not even anyone on his own side, except maybe Kats- one of the most important commanders on the winning side of the war. There haven't been any records of him killing anyone since the first battle of the Boshin War, though, so most people think he died back then."

Lightning flashed, and thunder followed not a moment later. The rain started coming down, hard. It didn't sound like it was in a mood to stop anytime soon.

The jou-chan glanced outside and sighed quietly. "I'll have to cancel the evening class today."

"That Hiroshi's probably gonna come anyways," said the brat. "Dunno why; you're so ugly."

The jou-chan's fist clenched tight around her chopsticks. "Yahiko!"

"What?" he snapped, leaning forward. "You are!"

As he watched the argument bounce back and forth between them, Zanza couldn't hold back a snort. He'd have to come here more often: free food _and _free entertainment!

His action attracted their attention, though, and both of them turned their heads simultaneously to glare at him. "Did you say something?" asked the jou-chan irritably.

"Freeloader," the brat—Yahiko—added darkly. He yelped when the jou-chan whacked the back of of his head.

"You're a freeloader too!"

"I never asked you for it!"

"Exactly!"

"What's that s'pposed to mean, Ugly?!"

"Hey, I can stay the night here, right?" Zanza cut across them.

"Whatever," Yahiko grumbled absently, and went back to his shouting match with the jou-chan.

Zanza grinned and sat back. Success! He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten three meals and a night's stay from one person. He'd even get lunch the next day too if he played his cards right.

Not that he was poor or homeless or anything: he had a house, cheap and rented as it was, and he could pay for food just fine; but he liked getting free stuff out of people. It was something of a hobby. He collected those memories like other people collected beetles or woodblock prints by a favorite artist.

He paused for a moment when he heard something over the rain and the jou-chan and Yahiko's fight. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember where from, especially since he couldn't hear it very clearly with all the other noises going on.

Well, he was full anyway, and it wasn't like those two would notice. Whistling, he sidled out of the room.

Something told him to look down, so he did. Big purple eyes blinked up at him.

He tried to equate the fluffy red whatever-it-was with the legendary Phantom Hitokiri who could make grown men wet themselves with just a single mention of his name. For some reason, it wasn't clicking.

Yeah. For some reason.

He couldn't even think of why anyone would want a horse like this. It was too small to ride. It was basically a walking pile of fuzzy, so anything its owner tried to make it carry would fall through it to land on the pavement after just a few steps. You couldn't even eat it, unless you liked eating fluff or something. In his mind's eye, Zanza could see it farting sparkling rainbows and eating puffy white clouds for breakfast. Just thinking of the Battousai and it in the same sentence felt like blasphemy.

*o.o?* said the fluffy.

And to add on to all that, it looked like it had been dressed up by little girls. It had a blue silk scarf wrapped around its neck, and a worn pink blanket that reached nearly to its ankles covered its back and about a centimeter of its neck and long tail. Its mane was tied with a leather band. Someone—its previous owner, most likely; Zanza couldn't see the jou-chan doing it—had carved a cross-shaped brand into the the left side of its head, below its eye.

He could just barely, maybe, believe it was a youkai. But the Battousai? It was a _horse _(probably), how would it even hold a sword anyway? In its mouth? Ha!

Mentally he moved the Hiruma brothers from under the "complete idiots" column to the "criminally stupid" category. He didn't know _how _drunk anyone would have to be to think this fluffy horse-thing was the main character in most Bakumatsu horror stories. It'd have to take near-lethal amounts of sake.

He slid the door open and poked his head in. The jou-chan and Yahiko had stopped shouting and were eating peacefully as if nothing had happened.

"Oi, jou-chan," he said. "Why've you got a fl- horse?"

She blinked. "You know Sword Heart?"

"Sword Heart?"

"Um," she said, "that's... his... last... owner said that was his name, so, uh... that's... what we call him? That's what we call him, I mean."

Well, it didn't really matter to him. "So what's it for?"

"He, uh, he co- carries things. Sometimes."

"And he cooks," said Yahiko, tone bored, "and does the laundry, chops wood, helps do the shopping, cleans the house, feeds the fish in the well, heats baths-"

"Yahiko!"

The brat just shrugged and popped a piece of imitation fish into his mouth.

"Ooookay," said Zanza. "Whatever you say."

-0-

Next chapter: It's not _really _an explosive. Honestly.


	7. Chapter 6

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

AN: I actually completely forgot about the police swordsmen, so they show up later in this story than they did in canon. Sorry about that.

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Kaoru caught sight of Sword Heart standing inconspicuously at the crowd's fringe and made her way over to him.

"What's going on?" she asked, craning her neck to try and see over the other people's heads. She wasn't short, but she certainly wasn't tall either, and all she saw was the blue of a policeman's uniform. An arrest? That would certainly draw a crowd.

She'd been worried when the horse had shown up at the gates with Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan and the tofu they'd gone out to buy on his back, dropped the girls off, and left after saying only that he had something he wanted to check, so she had followed him, leaving her most experienced student in charge of the class until she got back. But it seemed like the police were handling whatever situation had come up.

She cast a glance over at Sword Heart. His tail swished in wide arcs behind him, and his only acknowledgement of her was a flick of his ear.

"Excuse me, but you're Kamiya Kaoru-san, aren't you?" asked the middle-aged woman standing in front of her, turning. Her face was white and horrified. "The one who defeated the fake Battousai?"

Kaoru blinked. There was definitely something wrong here. "I, uh, I'm the assistant master of the Kamiya Kasshin dojo..."

"Oh, thank goodness!" she said, and there was so much relief in her voice that Kaoru was taken aback. "You have to help! What they're doing—I hate to say anything bad about the police, you understand, but what they're doing, it's awful!"

"We'll have to make an example," a man's voice rang out from the center of the crowd, and both women stopped to listen. "It is our mission to destroy evil in its infancy so as to prevent crimes, and we must kill sometimes to in order to keep our swordsmen's spirits sharp. Why not do them both together? Men, prepare these criminals for execution."

Kaoru's eyes widened. "What?" she breathed.

She suddenly _had _to see what was happening. She forced her way through the mass of people until she was standing right at the inside edge of the ring. What she saw turned her blood ice cold.

There were at least fifteen policemen, all of them carrying swords, and against the wall were three people tied up. One of them was an old man, another a woman, and the last another man who couldn't be any older than Kaoru.

"What are you _doing_?" she found herself saying. She took a step forward, ignoring the others' shouts of "Don't, they'll kill you too!" and drew her bokken.

One of the policemen smirked and said, in the same voice as the one that had announced the execution, "Oh, a girl with a wooden sword? Are you dissatisfied with us?"

"You can't do this," she said. She didn't think she'd ever been so angry in her life, not even when Kihei had betrayed her. "Just because you're policemen doesn't mean you can abuse your position!"

"Threatening and drawing a weapon on police," said the man. He drew his sword and licked the blade, never taking his eyes off her. "I hope every person heard that! Whatever I do now is self-defense!"

"You can't do that!" "This is tyranny!" "Are you really the police!?"

"If you don't want us to carry out justice, then you must be these criminals' accomplices!" He turned to the other police. "Arrest all of them! I authorize the use of swords. Kill those who resist."

Yelling, Kaoru sprang forward. She had no idea how she was supposed to stop fifteen skilled men armed with steel swords, but all she knew was that if she didn't, everyone there was going to die. She didn't have a choice.

All of a sudden, there was a loud _bang _that knocked her off balance and set her ears ringing, followed by a cloud of smoke obscuring her vision. Her eyes started watering, and she couldn't stop coughing.

She managed to stumble her way out of the smoke and rubbed her eyes, which just made it worse. At least she wasn't coughing anymore. Everyone else who had been watching the scene had already made their ways out into fresh air and were recovering. The policemen were nowhere to be seen. A few seconds after Kaoru, the three who had been about to be murdered managed to get out as well. They were crying, although she couldn't tell if it was relief or the smoke.

The grey was slowly starting to disperse, and after a few minutes, all of it was gone, showing every one of the policemen strewn on the ground, their swords scattered haphazardly. There wasn't a single drop of blood anywhere, and the bomb, which she had caught a brief glimpse of before it had gone off, had vanished.

Someone screamed.

Kaoru went over to one of them, the leader, and put her fingers to his throat. His pulse was strong, and his breathing was steady. She had a feeling that the others were the same.

"They're alive!" she called out.

"Did you do it?" asked someone.

She shook her head. "No."

She had no idea who had thrown the bomb and laid out the police, but she did know that whoever it was really deserved to have a festival thrown in their honor. Or at least free food. Speaking of which, she hadn't had lunch yet. Maybe she could grab Yahiko and Zanza and go to the Akabeko to see Tae-san. She hadn't been there for a while, not ever since-

_Wait_ a minute, why had Sword Heart been carrying around a bomb?

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Next chapter: Kaoru calls Kenshin out on his reckless bomb-throwing ways. (Yes, it was him, do you even need to ask?)


	8. Chapter 7

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

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By the time she got home, it was past noon, her morning students had all left, and her stomach was growling. She entered the gates in time to catch Sword Heart taking the first of the laundry down from the washing line. He did it with his front hooves, which had some sort of weird bamboo shoe-things on them. She had never figured out how he managed it, not even when she was watching him do it.

"Sword Heart! Where did you get that smoke bomb from?"

The pony looked up at her with big innocent purple eyes. "Oro?"

She whacked him. "Don't 'oro' me! Answer the question."

Sword Heart rubbed ruefully at his head with a hoof. "This one learned to make them many years ago, that he did. This one has never used them very often, though."

"Wait a minute, you know how to make bombs?"

He nodded carefully.

"And you just carry them around with you? All the time?"

Nod.

"Where do you keep them?" she asked, not really sure she wanted to know.

He blinked at her, and then ducked his head under his blanket and came back out with three large grey-black balls dangling from his mouth by the fuses. Each one was about the size of his head.

Kaoru just stared at him for a long moment, and then she reached out and yanked the blanket off, ignoring his protesting squeak.

He looked very bare without the blanket. It had always covered most his body for as long as she had known him. But without it, she could at least finally see where he kept all his things. There were two bags slung over his back, with one on either side of his body. Two straps connected them, one going over his back and the other leading around his belly. Below the left bag was the sakabatou. On his flank was some sort of whitish marking that, when she looked more closely, was a swords. A reverse-blade sword, to be specific. The detail on it was incredible. It looked practically real.

"You have _tattoos_?"

"No, no, they're natural, that they are," he said earnestly, and she decided not to ask. "Can this one have his blanket back, Kaoru-dono?"

Kaoru ignored him and lifted the flap on the closest pouch. Dried grass, empty drawstring bag, some bulky things at the bottom covered by a neatly folded blue blanket that looked like it was in much better shape than the pink one, a toy top like the ones she'd played with as a child, a sewing kit, candied apples, sugar cubes. The other one was just as odd and also filled to the brim. Nowhere in either of them was there any room for three, let alone four, bombs.

Still not very satisfied, she gave him back his blanket and very carefully nudged one of the bombs on the ground with her foot.

"Kaoru-dono?"

"Is it safe to throw these out with the trash?"

"Oro..." said Sword Heart. "Does Kaoru-dono want this one to dispose of them?"

"Yes! Yes I do! I don't like having _bombs_ in my house!"

"They're not really— Hai Kaoru-dono! This one will bury them right away that he will!"

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	9. Chapter 8

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

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It was a beautiful day: the sky was blue, dotted with puffy white clouds, and cool breezes blew through the air. Better yet, today Kaoru had no obligations other than lazing around on the engawa and watching Yahiko practice in the courtyard. She hadn't realized how wonderful it was to have so much free time until she'd started getting swamped with classes day in and day out. Not that having a lot of classes wasn't a very good thing, of course, but she had to take care of everything herself since none of the students were advanced enough yet for them to assist with teaching, and it had started wearing on her after a while.

Yahiko was doing much better than she'd thought he would when she had first taken him in. Somewhere deep inside she was half-convinced he was a kenjutsu prodigy, but there was no way she would ever tell anyone that. If Yahiko ever learned about it, it'd probably just make him even more of a brat.

Near her, Sword Heart was doing laundry. It seemed like he was always doing laundry. She still couldn't figure out how he washed and hung everything with just hooves.

As if he knew she was looking at him, he tilted his head over at her. "Kaoru-dono?"

"It's nothing," she said. "Just... you said yesterday that you've used those, _smoke bombs_, before. I was wondering."

Saying it out loud made her realize how little she actually knew about him. He said he was—had been—the Phantom Hitokiri, but that was the extent of her knowledge. She didn't know why he carried a sakabatou, or how he'd ever convinced the Ishin Shishi to let him join them, or what he'd done since he vanished after Toba-Fushimi, or why he'd left after Toba-Fushimi instead of seeing the Boshin War through, or even if he really _had _deserted after Toba-Fushimi, or—and here was a _really _good question—where he'd learned his swordsmanship from. She didn't even know what he _was_.

He looked sheepish for a moment. "This unworthy one _is _sorry for not mentioning them earlier, Kaoru-dono. He did not think he would ever need to use them in Tokyo, that he did not." He turned away to hang the next piece of washing up to dry. "This one does not like relying on them either. That he does not."

"Well, I guess I can see _why _you did it. But I still don't approve," she added sharply. She wasn't sure whether she was talking about the bombs themselves or the fact that Sword Heart hadn't told her before he set one off right in front of her. Maybe both.

"...Sword Heart?"

"Oro?"

She looked at the washing line, watched the white kendo clothing drip water onto the grass. She said, "Sword Heart? It's just, you've been staying here for such a long time, and you've been so helpful, but I just realized I don't actually know anything about you. I don't care about people's pasts, but, um, I- I want to know why you were in Tokyo when Kihei... I mean, you don't have to tell me! I'm just... curious."

"This one is a wanderer, Kaoru-dono, that he is. He goes where the road takes him, and the road brought him to Tokyo a month ago, that it did."

"A wanderer," Kaoru repeated. "Wait a minute, does that mean you're going to...?"

"Leave Tokyo? Yes," said Sword Heart, "it does. But this one hopes that time will not come for a while yet, that he does. If it is alright with Kaoru-dono, this one would like to impose for a little longer."

She had to remind herself that this was Sword Heart and he was always like this, so she couldn't hit him for being an idiot. "Of course you can! I'd have to eat out every day if you weren't here!"

He laughed, and she thought he sounded slightly relieved. She pretended she didn't notice.

"One more question. _What_ are you?"

The horse paused in his washing for a brief moment, and then started scrubbing again. "If Kaoru-dono is referring to this one's species, then this one... does not know," he said apologetically.

She blinked. "You... don't know? How can you not know what you are?"

"This one was raised by humans, that he was," said Sword Heart.

She suddenly felt bad for asking at all. She'd never _really_ thought of Sword Heart as having a past before the Bakumatsu—before he'd showed up in her dojo with a sword in his mouth, really—and the reminder that he hadn't actually spontaneously popped into existence with a backstory for the sole purpose of saving her from Gohei struck hard. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I mean, I didn't know. I shouldn't have asked."

"It is fine, Kaoru-dono. You did not know, and one cannot miss that which one has never had, that one cannot."

This statement, delivered in a rather cheerful tone of voice, did not actually make her feel any better.

Sword Heart hung up the last piece of laundry and looked up at the sky. "This one will need to make lunch soon, that he will," he mused.

"No, I can do it today," said Kaoru hastily. "You go... er." What did he do when he wasn't doing chores?

He turned to her, eyes wide. "You shouldn't trouble yourself with such things, Kaoru-dono! This one is staying in your home and living off your generosity, the least he can do is take care of such simple tasks for you!"

"No," said Kaoru again, more firmly. "I can make lunch today. I haven't cooked for so long, I kind of miss it. _You _can just go do whatever."

"This one likes cooking, Kaoru-dono, that he does! In fact, this one is thinking of trying a new recipe! This one wants to try it very much, that he does! And," he was sounding kind of desperate at this point, though she couldn't fathom why, "the ingredients this one uses are different than the ones you are used to, Kaoru-dono, this one really does not believe you could-"

"Are you calling me a bad cook?" she interrupted, narrowing here eyes.

"Oro! No, not at all, Kaoru-dono's cooking is a... very interesting experience, that it is, this one has never had anything quite like it before, but this one would very much prefer it if-"

Kaoru stood up. "I'm going to go make lunch now," she told him.

He made a sort of "eep!" noise and nodded rapidly. "Then... this one will inform Yahiko, that he will."

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	10. Chapter 9

Summary: Hiko knows Hiten Mitsurugi's rules forward and back, and nowhere does it say his apprentice has to be human.

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Just thirty minutes ago Zanza had found himself the proud possessor of a lot of money. He hadn't even needed to count it to know that it was more than he usually made in months. And that Ishin politician had just given it to him like it wasn't worth anything.

Zanza wasn't as annoyed by that as he usually would be. He had other things on his mind.

Like how exactly that assassin had turned up dead with his own wakizashi stabbed deep into his stomach.

Zanza had seen worse. This time hadn't even been all that bad, considering he'd been prepared for far more gruesome corpses strewn around the mansion's front gates. But he hadn't been expecting the body to be lying in the middle of the street, and he definitely hadn't been expecting for it to be the assassin himself's. Kurogasa had still been warm and bleeding when Zanza reached him; he'd been _alive_, even, if only for a few seconds. The killer couldn't have left more than a minute ago.

The street had been fenced off and police had been swarming the area when Zanza'd left with his cash. The chief had looked about as frustrated as it was possible to. Somebody has ambushed Kurogasa before he could reach Tani and killed him with his own weapon, which was bad enough, but then he'd also broken the assassin's sword arm, cracked three ribs on his left side, and nearly crushed his throat, as well as caused internal damage that just barely avoided being fatal. That pointed towards a blunt weapon, but there weren't a lot of people who could defeat a swordsman of Kurogasa's caliber in close combat without a blade. Zanza himself was pretty much the only suspect, but even then the police knew his style, and assassinating an assassin in the middle of the night was not even close to it.

So in other words, they didn't have a single clue who had done it. One of Tokyo's better kendo masters might have been a possibility, except there was no way that any of them could have known about Kurogasa targeting Tani that night. One of the officers had suggested dubiously that maybe Kurogasa had hit himself a few times with the back of his katana, thrown it away, then stabbed himself with the wakizashi, and in all honesty that was as good a guess as any.

Well, it wasn't Zanza's problem. He had his money, Tani was still alive and still snobbish, and the assassin wouldn't be bothering anyone else. Nothing to do with him. He'd ask his gambling buddies to keep an eye out, just in case, and he'd more careful himself at night, but that was _it_. Honest.

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AN: Sorry about not writing the fight, but this story is not ever going to be told from Kenshin's or a villain's point of view. And, though I know this probably isn't enough to make up for his never making an appearance at all, Kurogasa's death _is _still going to have a major impact on certain events later on.


End file.
